Does anyone know if a utility company (say Verizon) or a retail store can put an unpaid phone bill or other unpaid debt on a credit report a) without any warning b) if they were not already reporting to that CRA. I'm not sure how all of this works. Can they just call up TU and say, "I have this customer who didn't pay their bill, please put this on their report." or do they have to have been reporting this all along?
They put one on my report also no warning,I had a sprint one show up on my report,I disputed it came back verified,going to do another dispute.Gulf credit has it now
Right, but were they reporting this all along on your credit report? Or did it just show up out of nowhere? This hasn't happened to me, I'm just curious...
Yes. Yes. Negative information can be added to your credit report without notification and from businesses that do not maintain a tradeline on your report. Examples: Power Bills, Telephone, Bad Checks, Medical Bills, Legal Judgements....
I just had this... I have collection from Money Control for $198 dollars from Pacific Bell in California form 1999. I was never informed of the transfer to a collection agency. nor was I aware of the debt... No letters. No calls. until it showed up my experian credit report in 4/2001. I wrote them a letter 5/2001 asking what this was for, I paid my last pacific Bell bill that I had.. Call Pacific Bell- were sorry there is nothing we can do. they told me to contact the CA but no phone number... just an address.. Waiting for response... none recieved... Letter #2 6/2001 no Response... account just showed up on Equifax 10/01 (date reported 7/01) yesterday, and TU 9/01 (date reported 6/01) last month... funny how they coincide with the letters after not being previously reported.. Still no response from them... I did not send those letters certified so the are lost... but I am sending a new letter requestion validation of the debtcertified mail.. But this is way past any 30 day anything.. but they have never contacted me..???? Experian dispute came back verified 9/01 ugh... any suggestions.. any one
If they never billed you, and you weren't hiding from them - like if you had moved, you were having your mail forwarded, etc, then you have violations under the Fair Credit Billing Act. Your beef is with the creditor for not billing you. If I were you, I would go study that law, and draw up anice threatening letter regarding all the violations and send it to the original creditor, then send copies to the CA and CRA. This is something we haven't gotten into much here, but you have the right to be billed in a timely manner, and the right to dispute your bill, and the creditor is restricted in the actions they can take against you (damaging your credit report) if they do not follow these laws, and you can sue them just like you can sue the CRA's. The penalties are similar.
